One of those days...

Today is just one of those days. I am feeling overly emotional and guilt-ridden.

The morning started fairly uneventfully. The kids were dressed, ate breakfast and brushed their teeth without much nagging on my part. As long as we leave the house by 7:25 I get to school in time to walk Taylor into the playground and watch him play for about 10 or 15 minutes before the bell rings. Today though, he had a hard time finding anyone to play with and just kind of wandered about until maybe 5 minutes before the bell rang when his friend Brennen showed up. But Brennen was running so fast Taylor had a hard time keeping up and went back to wandering. It was the first time that he actually looked a little sad, I guess I've always thought Autism kept him blissfully unaware of these awkward social moments.  So seeing my Little Man like this, I began to think of what I could do to make this better...this playground is so big and there are more kids then he has ever gone to school with. Would he be better at a smaller school? But then what about college? College will be big, will he have adapted by then? And then of course my big fear wondering if he will even be able to go to college. And then I started thinking about me working- if I were working, I would miss all of these moments. Is that really worth it? Can I convince Brooks I should stay home just a little longer?

I think that what might really be happening is that we are just coming back from our weekend visit with Brooks' parents who are now on a plane headed back to Madrid for the school year. The kids really enjoy spending time with their grandparents and this was the first time Jazzy was realizing they were going very far away for a long time and I could see her getting sad and concerned about that. I know I felt bad this weekend watching them play with their grandparents and thinking about their relationship with their other grandma. My mom last visited with the kids in January- 8 months ago. She did see them briefly during the drop off and pick up when my little sister spent the night. Taylor remembers Grammy and enjoys her company although it seems to take way more phone calls, texts and effort on my part to make that happen anymore. The last time we saw her when Katie was being dropped off, I had to actually tell Jazzy later that the woman visiting was her other grandma.

So there I was this morning thinking about all the things in Taylor's life that I could not control and feeling sad for him. I wish I could make other kids want to play with him, I wish I could help him run faster or have an easier time doing the monkey bars so he could be involved more in what the other kids were doing. I wish I could only fill his life with people who loved him and always wanted to be around him. I wish we could win the lottery so both Brooks and I could be home with him and help him learn these things.

I hope when I pick him up from school he has a big smile on his face, because I know I will when I see my sweet Little Man again.

Tucson Catch Up

We have now been in Tucson officially for 32 days. It has been one full month, so here is my attempt at a brief re-cap.

School:
Paragon Science Academy was great, but their sister school in Tucson is horrible. Because they aren't good enough for my son we looked at a number of different schools and put him on the waiting list at one super cute school called Tucson Country Day School. As the first day of school approached, he never got called so we resigned ourselves to him attending our neighborhood school. Then my friend suggested I beg talk to the principal at Soleng Tom, which is where Jazzy would be going to preschool. On the Tuesday before school started I said about 10 Hail Mary's and gave it my best shot. He was super kind, told me he thought they did have room and we filled out the enrollment paperwork. The very next day I got a confirmation phone call and Taylor now had a school! His teacher is Mrs. Lowe, she is damn near as saintly as the principal and I am in love with the school. It is on the east side in the beautiful part of the desert and the drive and smell of the desert makes me happy. Yeah, I said it. I may even be falling in love with this silly town.

Sassy Jazzy:
Little Miss decided she liked Pre-School once she met the teacher and discovered the classroom had some pretty neat toys. Rachael's son Matt is in her class and it is beyond adorable watching those two play with one another. She loves school and only goes Tuesday/Thursday but wants to go every day. I love that they go to the same school, being a taxi is making my days a little hectic but someday soon hopefully we can buy in the neighborhood closer to the school.

The Car:
My car is pretty but has a lot of miles on it and is starting to be pretty needy. With me not working, we really aren't in the position for two car payments so we are just fixing it on what seems like a regular basis. The newest repair was a new fuel pump and cam sensors ($700). Now the A/C which was just recharged is blowing hot out of the two drivers vents off and on and the anti-theft light keeps blinking. Le sigh. But, my super handy-when-he-feels-like-it husband replaced the air filter and fixed the trunk brake light this weekend. Whoo-hoo for figuring out how to do somethings ourselves :)

A Job:
I have applied for a number of different jobs, but only had two call back for interviews. One was for an event coordinator which would be a dream job for me but when they called back for the second interview I had to decline. Now that we know where Taylor is going to school, the commute is just way too far to work out how we'd get the kids to school and ourselves to work. I am thinking about trying to find a part-time retail job at someplace where the discount would be handy: a kids clothing store, maybe a home decor store.

Getting settled:
Our dining room still looks like a storage unit, but we did buy a new couch this weekend! It gets delivered tomorrow and then the living room will look a little better. I also found a really pretty lampshade for our room today, too. I can't wait to actually be able to have people over again once we get all the Rubbermaid's and boxes moved out and a new table moved in.

HALLELUJAH!

We have a TV!

I know, our priorities are totally apparent here... we still do not have a dinning room table, we don't have a couch...but we have a TV.

We have now been in Tucson for 21 days, we've been eating out, picnicking on the floor or the bottom two steps leading into the living room, I've also been trying to mooch dinners off of our friends whenever possible ;) OK not really, but we do enjoy seeing our friends and appreciate the invites. Our dining room is the first room you walk into, so it looks a little odd to walk right into a table-less room with the back wall stacked tall with boxes that hopefully soon will make it into storage. With the TV our living room looks a little better although I would love a couch at some point hopefully soon.

After being moved in just a few days, Taylor made his own TV:

Here is the "small" TV Brooks picked out:

What's even better is that when we plugged the sucker in we picked up a few basic channels...and get this- we picked up even more digital channels. Go figure that one, but as I type this the babies are watching Nick Jr. I can only attribute this as being a gift from the Heavens. God saw I was tiring of the kids fighting and knew a little non educational programming was just the fix.

So, thank you Jesus. Last night I was able to watch Love In the Wild, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

And tonight after I watch some more TV, I will get the privilege of sleeping in my own bed. Yes! It's true! While opening his wallet for the TV was not something he even had to think about, Brooks tried the old "we'll look at mattresses tomorrow" trick with me and Angry Laura merely had to speak a few choice words and we were out the door to the mattress store. For the past 21 nights I have been sleeping with Jasmine and he has been sleeping on the extra twin mattress. If this purchase had not been made, my lovely, handsome and sweet husband would be having very personal conversations with Jesus.

So, it's coming along. Slowly, but surely this place will be complete.

Tucson Continued

As of today it has been a whopping 18 days in Tucson, but it feels like at least 2 months. Taylor is now the third kid in the lottery at Tucson Country Day School, so I remain hopeful he'll make it in by the end of this week. We've found a dinning table, I think we've found a couch and I can now count down the days until we are sleeping in our own bed. Once we have those three things I think I will feel a little more "moved in."

Brooks' parents are down this weekend for a visit and the babies are loving it. Grandma did not disappoint and brought over a big batch of Chex muddy buddies, peanut butter cookies and rice crispy treats with M&M's. I noticed she also snuck a few extra packages of M&M's in the goody bag as well. Taylor enjoyed giving them a tour of our apartment and Jazzy and Grandma played dress-up with the Barbies. Taylor may or may not have joined in, but if he does any "girly" stuff it is all in secret and certainly something he does not want his mom broadcasting over the interwebs. After some playtime we went out to lunch at the Texas Roadhouse, then headed over to their hotel which happens to be next door to our complex. We went swimming and then headed back to their suite to watch the new Phineas and Ferb movie and hang out. Jazzy and Grandma played hide and seek for quite a while, Jazzy gave away her spot every time but it was super cute to watch. We ordered pizza for dinner, and then walked home.

Somehow we all managed to completely crash out and woke up about 2 hours later than we normally do. We were all still in our jammies, and Brooks was still asleep when Grandma and Papa knocked at our door to join us for breakfast. OOPS! Thankfully, they were understanding and the kids were very excited to see them again and play some more. After breakfast we went swimming again and then out to lunch and said goodbye. We'll be back up to visit them at the end of the month when we take them back to the airport to say goodbye.

Taylor is really getting pretty confident in the water. He has been trying out different cannonball-ish dives, going underwater and has even swam completely unassisted for short distances. I think as long as we keep getting him in the pool he will be a full-fledged swimmer in no time.

We made it!

We have now officially been in Tucson for 12 days, and have been through an insane amount in those mere 12 days.

Most importantly, Brooks likes his job and the kids have adjusted just fine. Our apartment complex  has a pool, which is small, clean and never busy.  I scored a super cute floatie from my friend Lauren just before we moved down and Jazzy discovered yesterday she could actually let go of us in the pool and float all by herself. The weather has been awesome- pretty much in the 90's this whole time and raining almost daily. We also tried Five Guys Burgers for dinner and last night had Lucky Wishbone, a Tucson staple. Both were yummy albeit way more calories then we should probably be having.

As for crappiness- the experience loading up the truck from our storage unit was pure Hell. It was about 5 million degrees out and our unit got attacked by the haboob so we were not only super hot but super dusty. Both of us were dripping with sweat and the longer we were at the unit trying to load up, the more steam we lost which meant we just kept moving slower and slower. Finally the torture was over and we picked up the kids from Araceli's and made it to Tucson for the second half. My little brother and two sisters came to help us unload, which helped that half move much faster than the load.

We have been through the wringer with Sonoran Science Academy and my sentiment at this time is that they can eat shit and die. Taylor is on the waiting list at another school which we have heard nothing but good things about. The only problem is with school starting soon, I am not sure he will make it up the list in time. Our home school is in a decent area, but the test scores are pretty low so we have looked at tons of other schools with no luck. Jazzy starts preschool on the 15th which she is not happy about at all, but I am sure she'll decides she likes it once she gives it a chance.

The apartment is great, I really love the community. It is small and quiet and in a great location. But, we managed to give away a lot of our furniture months ago so at the moment we have some re-decorating to do. The only seating we have is our chaise lounge, one small kids bean bag chair and the good ol' floor. We have been looking around and I think found a dining table we liked at Z Gallerie, so we'll probably pick that up this weekend. We also have no mattress, and I am hopefully we will find some good prices soonish as I have been sleeping with Jazzy and Brooks has been sleeping on the extra twin and we could both use some decent  kid-less sleep.  And finally, we have no TV or internet (legitimately). We turned our Cox account on at Brooks' parents house and will transfer it down here once they return to Spain for the school year. That really is no biggie,  they have done so much for us and the kids will survive although we have to convince them of this. We also need to buy a second car before school starts.

Being back is not as bad as I thought. Driving around is so much easier, things just seem a little more calmer and laid back here. The most important things is that the kids are happy, which makes me happy.